


Orbis Non Sufficit

by cerie



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the second world war, the games are only beginning.  James and Helen attempt to track down schematics for a nuclear weapon that John sold to the Russians after the fall of Germany. For Sam and Lisa, who encourage my madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orbis Non Sufficit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [windandthestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/gifts).



“It appears I’ve been compromised.”

His voice was clipped and Russian with a bit of something else laying beneath and Helen had to admit that the accent was good. Very good. If she’d not known it was him, well, she’d have been fooled. She cut her eyes from James to the man who’d just walked into the room: burly, ex-military and quite possibly something of a threat. He didn’t know English, though, and Helen hoped they could play that to their advantage.

“I think we’ll be all right. We just have to let this fellow labor under the delusion that he’s caught me now and done a good job of it. You won’t suffer for it.”

Her own speech was heavily accented in Parisian French even though she’d been born on English soil and lived there most of her life. It was simply safer to be a French redhead than a cool English blonde and James had agreed. They’d done well following up on leads to obtain designs for a nuclear weapon until this juncture, where Helen had to pretend to have been captured by James and tied into a chair. No doubt this would come up later when they cleared out. No doubt.

“ _Why is the little French girl so content to be captured, hmm? She is hardly putting up a fight._ "

Ah. Slightly more intelligent than usual. Of course. That was always her luck when Helen was relying upon her own brains and James’ to get them out of a sticky bind. It never seemed to work out for her, though, and when James crossed behind her chair and tipped it back, Helen took the opportunity to plant her stiletto heel directly into the other man’s chin. He reeled back, shocked, then lunged for James. Bloody hell.

“Next time, darling, I do recommend actually letting me _loose_ before starting the attack? My hands are a bit tied.” Helen had always been deft with knots though and this was no exception; quick work meant staying alive and Helen was very, _very_ quick. Bonds undone, she rolled up onto her feet and brought the chair crashing down on the other man’s head, leaving him laying in a pool of blood.

“I don’t know that he’s out permanently and when he wakes, he’ll certainly divulge who we are. We can’t afford that.” Helen worried her lower lip as she considered James’ words. She didn’t necessarily like killing someone if she could possibly help it and while this man was a soldier for Stalin, he likely had a family and friends and a whole life he wanted to go back to. Not everyone was evil. Some were merely a product of their own society and circumstances.

“No. I suppose not. Quickly, then?” James was efficient, at the least, and a clean death was better than torture at any time. Slitting a throat never took much time and while Helen didn’t like the reminder of John, there was no helping it. She slid her arm around James’ waist both in support for his own condition and in needing _emotional_ support of her own.

***

A plane was probably the best option for getting out of the country quickly but Helen hardly wanted to attract attention. Instead, she opted for a train and thought if they slept in shifts, they could get some rest. There was a safe house in France, just along the coast, and she’d used it once or twice while getting her feet wet in this new role. The death of Hitler and the downfall of Axis had left a power vacuum in Europe and the world was simply not prepared to smack down Stalin. Stalin, really, who was no better than Hitler had been in a lot of ways.

Nikola was still enamored of the American government and with Roosevelt and later Eisenhower and he had been no help in this venture. America was bright and sunny and full of opportunity. Why would he leave? Griffin was off the grid once again, likely in America too, and Helen and James had been the only ones even marginally concerned with finding out where John had gone and who he was working for now that the Nazis had lost power. 

He’d stolen very important schematics from the bases he’d been on during the war and sold them, presumably, to the Russians. Helen had hoped to find a link back to John tonight and while they’d found out the Russians didn’t even have a prototype, they’d found neither John nor the stolen schematics. Damn.

“Stop thinking.” James’ voice was low and roughened by sleep and Helen had to stifle a bit of a laugh. He’d slumped in the seat next to her on the train and drifted for a while when she’d been thinking and it seemed that even in sleep, he was still the most perceptive man in the room. She brushed her hands against his forehead tenderly, pushing his hair back. So handsome. One of her first loves, honestly, and probably the one she should have chosen over John.

“Should have known you’ve learned how to read minds,” Helen quipped but she conceded the point. There was no point in fretting over it now when they had two and a half days train ride from where they’d been in Minsk to her house in Marseilles. She turned and laid her head against James’ shoulder, smiling a bit when he wrapped an arm around her. There was no safer place in the world than James’ arms. Not now and not ever.

***

When Helen next awoke, her warm pillow in the form of James had been replaced with a scratchy blanket and his jacket. It was early, the dawn still cool and grey outside the windows of the train and it took her a few moments to collect herself before she could work out where he might have gone. Travel by train was always difficult for James because he didn’t much like being cooped up and he certainly didn’t care for the way the train jerked and jolted him. Unlike she, Nikola and John, his longevity was made possible by machines and not through Source blood alteration and travel was rough on his machinery.

After finger-combing her hair and wandering along the cars of the train, she found him in the smoking car with a cigar. His beard was gone and Helen imagined he must have asked a valet for something to shave with in order to minimize their chances of being caught. She suddenly wished there was something to do about her own hair but given the limited resources on the train, she was stuck with red for the time being. When they got to Marseilles, she’d have it dyed. Dark, this time, and perhaps that would make her stick out less than red and blonde always had. It was vanity, to want to be memorable, and vanity wasn’t something Helen could afford right now.

“Bit cramped?” James nodded, quiet, and finished his cigar before motioning her close. So often when working undercover like this, they posed as lovers, and it worked quite well considering that was actually the case. She and James had been together off and on for the better part of the last sixty years and even though so much of her heart still lay with the man John Druitt _used_ to be, she couldn’t deny loving James. She’d always loved James in a way, it simply hadn’t deepened into something romantic until John became the Ripper.

“Just a day or so to go, then a car, then Marseilles for the foreseeable future. Oh, darling, you’ll simply love Marseilles. Better than dingy and dirty Russia by far.” James’ eyebrow seemed to climb to the sky but Helen had a very real point in playing an empty headed lover. Everyone knew they’d gotten on the train in Russia, no sense in lying there, and James had used a Russian accent the entire time they’d been on board. If she were his French mistress and they were headed to Marseilles...no sense in questioning it further.

“You’re maligning it,” James managed, pulling her close and brushing a kiss against her hair. Nobody else in the car seemed to notice them much after that, though, and while the trip was long it was blessedly uneventful. There was a bit of a scare when a stop in Austria nettted them a large group of Russian diplomats but she and James kept their distance and pretended (?) to be wholly wrapped up in one another. 

There was one man, though, who couldn’t take his eyes off them and that unnerved her. They’d made it to Switzerland by the next morning, hopefully to Marseilles by that very evening if they made good time, and Helen had stepped out back to get a bit of fresh air while James slept. They’d let security go by the wayside a bit when nothing seemed to be actively threatening them and that, apparently, had been a rather stupid mistake. The man, whom Helen had thought merely a valet in the bar, turned out to be a Russian spy with a vested interest in taking out the two who’d infiltrated his country and killed a high-ranking official. 

He’d come prepared, too, considering the garrotte was from the piano in the bar and no amount of Helen struggling was going to turn him loose. He’d gotten the advantage on her by surprising her and out here with nobody else around? Her body would simply tumble from the train and be found long after it’d passed through Switzerland.

Helen kicked back, aiming to hit his kneecaps with her heels when two things happened: first, she could breathe again as the wire had gone slack and second, there’d been a loud bang and the man had simply slumped behind her. She turned, still gasping for breath, and went pale when she saw who it was. John. John never used firearms if he could possibly help it and yet he’d shot her attacker in cold blood. There was a body, now, and Helen hoped she could dump it off without anyone noticing the man had gone missing. Hope, of course, predicated on whether or not John would leave her be.

“Thank you,” she managed, and John pressed a finger against her lips. “One of many attempts at balancing my accounts, Helen. Shall I do the rest of your dirty work so you can get back to James?”

He knew. Helen knew that John was aware of her to some extent at any given point of time simply because, well, it was _John_ and he had a mad obsession. Still, she hadn’t realized he’d tracked she and James to this train and, presumably, had known where they came from. Had John too been on the search for the schematics? Did he intend to steal them back and put them in the hands of America or England or had he defected to Russia after the fall of Germany?

Helen hardly had a chance to work out what she wanted to say before John had kissed her, one hand roughly gripping her hair. She was too out of it to protest and, considering he was actually being sane for a moment, part of her wanted it anyway. It was too fleeting, though, and he’d disappeared along with the dead body before she even had a chance to say goodbye.

And now she owed him something for cleaning up her messes. Damn.

***

The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful and while that made it mind-numbingly boring rolling through the French countryside, Helen preferred it over the alternative. James had noticed the ligature mark on her neck and rather than lie, she’d told him about the spy who’d been on board and whom she’d neatly dispatched. James seemed satisfied with it until they disembarked in Marseilles and hired a car to drive out to her seaside cottage.

“You know, I have to wonder. Your lipstick was smudged when you came back after killing that man. Did you need to go have a bit of a drink? It’s understandable, of course. Killing someone is messy business. Except when it comes to you, because you always have a cool head. I suspect you’re keeping something from me, Helen.”

Damn. Helen tried to decide what to say, exactly, that might cover that very thing. Stopping off in the loo to have a bit of a kiss and cuddle with a random man or woman likely wouldn’t anger James very much, their relationship wasn’t traditional, but she still felt terrible lying to him when it was _John_ she’d kissed. Of all people and all places, John Druitt on a train in Switzerland.

“He showed up, didn’t he? Saved your life, took a kiss in exchange? I’ll never understand the hold he has over you, Helen. If only I could have half that much influence over a woman as spectacular and wonderful as you. I’d be a very happy man.”

Helen didn’t say anything. John was a sore point with James and always had been; it would simply be cruel for her to confirm that John had taken the kiss and on some level, Helen had wanted it. But while she was sexually attracted to John and still loved the shadow of the man he’d been when they were young, it was _James_ she loved now as a woman in possession of herself and her faculties. Her love for James was deep and steady, unchanged by time, and hardly subject to the whims of passion that she and John had always been plagued with.

Instead, she slipped her hand in his and squeezed lightly before driving them the rest of the way to the cottage. Perhaps a few months alone with him would help James realize that he was her choice for the future and that John would be remaining very firmly in her past.

***

James had gone to lay down as soon as they pulled up to the cottage, exhausted from travel and adrenaline, and Helen had simply let him. She wasn’t tired at all and after cooking dinner for the two of them and covering James’ so that he could eat later, she’d taken wine outside to go sit on the beach.

The moon was full tonight, the sky full of stars. The tide was coming in and the waves rose and crested against the rocks in a way that reminded Helen, yet again, that nature was a beautiful thing. She wondered if there were mermaids beyond the breaking spray (there was a colony off the coast of Gibraltar and some in the Americas) and thought, perhaps, that she’d simply imagine there were instead of going out to prove herself wrong.

She was a bit surprised to hear footsteps and couldn’t help but smile when James padded out to the water’s edge, feet bare even if he was still perfectly dressed. He was still a handsome man, James, but he was shy about showing off the exoskeleton that kept him preserved and Helen tended to respect that wish. Making love was no different in the dark than it’d be with lights blazing, after all, and she wanted James happy over pleasing herself. He extended a hand to her and she took it, standing up and sliding into his arms.

“Come to bed, Red,” James murmured against her hair, sending a warm flush over Helen’s cheeks. She’d thought he was still a bit cross with her about John but it seemed he wasn’t; James didn’t tend to fall into John’s jealous games and assertions of dominance over her and that was one of the many reasons she preferred him over Nikola.

Helen turned and met his mouth for a long kiss, lips soft against his and seeking both solace and forgiveness. Even when a meeting with John had gone well, it always left her a bit raw and undone and James was always a balm to that, to both her heart and her mind. James never thought badly of her for still loving John, deep down, and didn’t feel threatened. He seemed to understand that what she and John had could never touch or affect the strong, sweet love she had for James. John had been a girl’s fantasy and a girl’s first love. James belonged to Helen as a woman, not a naive girl, and the depth of the relationship was something that John would never have been able to have with her as he currently was.

James broke the kiss first, touching Helen’s chin lightly, and wrapped an arm around her waist to lead her back inside. The bedroom in the Marseilles cottage was small, but cheerily appointed, and the bright yellows and spring greens made it seem that much more appealing after the dingy grey of Minsk. 

His fingers were always deft but they seemed especially so tonight, delicate in removing her clothes and, once she was naked, in brushing against her bare skin. The window was open and the cool breeze off the ocean sent goosebumps across her skin that didn’t fade away when James sat on the edge of the bed and tugged her between his knees. That put his mouth right where it needed to be to lick, suck and tease her breasts until her knees had gone weak and only when she was reduced to whimpers and begging did he stand and tug her hands to his collar.

“Undress me, then. I know you were with him. It’s not in my nature to be jealous but I do know that you so love it when you’ve been a bad girl and I punish you accordingly so I’m exacting it now. Undress me and then I want you to suck me until I’ve decided you’ve atoned for what you did earlier. Does that seem fair?”

James always asked if it were fair. So many things in the world weren’t, honestly, and didn’t look to be improving on that front but here in their bedroom and in the games they played, there was a balance of power that, when shifted, could very easily be calibrated to zero with a few hours of control and submission. It made everything else seem fleeting and far away and Helen was always so, so grateful for it.

She hoped that gratefulness was evident in the way she skimmed off his clothes and the way she drew her kisses down his neck and chest. She lingered for a moment over his stomach, her own breathing coming in short, shaky gasps, and was rewarded with his hand in her hair. Petting her, more or less, but it always seemed to calm her down when she’d worked herself up. James gathered her hair (it’d grown long from the bob she’d had in the war) and held it out of the way once she slid her mouth on his cock.

She’d always liked this. It was something she shouldn’t admit, perhaps, but she had always liked it and the sharp bite of the metal and leather that held James’ exoskeleton on merely heightened the sensation. She was a live wire, rubbed raw, and when James arched his hips and fucked her throat, it only ramped her up further. She pulled away when she felt his nails dig into her shoulder sharp enough to draw blood and met his eyes with her own. His were dark, pupils dilated, and Helen had to wonder if she looked just as wrecked.

“Climb on, then,” James said, exasperated, and Helen scrambled to change positions. As she slid onto him, she caught him mumbling beneath his breath both about how good she felt and how good a girl she was, how wonderful, how lucky he was. Helen flushed with the praise and slid her hand down to cup his cheek, thumb brushing against the corner of his mouth and gasped when James’ hand moved from her hip to brush his thumb against her clitoris. She always so loved it when they came together and she felt him stiffen and arch beneath her just as the first waves of her own orgasm hit; they were, and always would be, a very good team.

***

When sunlight streamed through the curtains, Helen merely buried her face a little more against James shoulder. He chuckled, just a bit, and tugged the blankets up over them so she could hide from the light and the day for just a bit longer. Last night had been wonderful and, in many ways, a homecoming. It was atonement for kissing John again and reacquaintance after months and months in deep cover and no contact. She’d missed him, terribly, and while she hated being compromised, this wasn’t a bad trade-off.

“Do you think we’ll ever get those schematics back? John seems to still have a vested interest in them. We can’t take him on alone. We’ve always failed, every single time.”

James kissed her hair and was silent for a moment, thinking. When he spoke, his words were deliberate and sure with none of the hesitation her own had.

“I think this isn’t the time to discuss it. Empires rise and fall, darling, and we’re all just players on the board. One day we might be kings and queens, the next pawns. John’s a pawn as much as we are, for the moment, and he has a slight advantage. We need to lay low, examine our options, and play our own strategies. The world can wait.”

And so it would.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Orbis Non Sufficit_ is Latin for the "World is not Enough." The english version was the title of a James Bond movie and the Latin is a nail polish by Rescue Beauty Lounge. The title was what I came up with first - not my norm.
> 
> "Come to bed, Red," is the name of a polish by butter London.


End file.
